1 See Hiram K. Moderwell's interview, “Count Karolyi Tells Why,” The Liberator, II, No. 7 (July, 1919), 16.

2 Bela Kun disappeared in the Great Purge around 1938. He was charged with semi-Trotskyism in spite of his hatred for Trotsky. Three years after Stalin's death, however, Kun was restored to favor. See E. Varga, “70th Anniversary of Birth of Bela Kun,” Pravda, Feb. 21, 1956, p. 10.

3 Before the creation of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, Janoušek was mainly concerned with spreading Communism in Czechoslovakia; he and his comrades in February 1919, succeeded in distributing leaflets among the soldiers in the Czech army urging them to organize Communist Soldiers’ Councils and to turn their bayonets against the “barbarian monarchs and capitalist killers.“

4 Quoted in Peroutka, Ferdinand, Budování státu (Building of State) (Prague: Orbis, 1936)Google Scholar, II, 989, my italics.

5 During the critical days in March, 1919, Béla Kun rejected General Smuts’ offer to adhere to the conditions of the armistice, i.e., not mobilize and abstain from propaganda abroad. Instead Kun decided that there must be war; he intentionally drifted into war, in the belief that it could save the Hungarian Soviet Republic from disintegration. Later on, in 1920, when Kun was chief political commissar in the last campaign of the Russian Civil War in the Crimea, thousands of officers of the Wrangel's White Army were put to death in a most inhuman manner: heavy stones were tied around the victims and then they were tossed into the sea. For further details see Borkenau, F., World Communism (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1939), pp. 115, 122-23Google Scholar.

6 Crystal Eastman, “In Communist Hungary,” The Liberator, II, No. 8 (August, 1919), 9.

7 Gosiorovsky, Miloš, Přípěvék k dějinám slovenského ělnického hnutl (Contribution to the History of the Slovak Workers’ Movement) (Prague: Rovnost, 1952), p. 65.Google Scholar

8 Ibid.

9 The way this situation had been exploited by the Communists is well described by Wilhelm Boehm, military commander of the Hungarian Red Army, in his Im Kreuzfeuer Zweier Revolutionen (Munich: Verlag f. Kulturpolitik, 1924)Google Scholar.

10 Karol A. Medvecký, Slovenskýprevrat (The Slovak Revolution) (Bratislava: “Komenský,” vydavatel'ská a literárna spol. s r. o., 1931), IV, 275.

11 According to Oscar Jászi, “at least 95 per cent of the Communist leaders were Jewish… . The Hungarian Jews played a leading part not only in Bolshevism but in every economic and intellectual movement, and also in spheres which had been closed to them for centuries. They had begun, for instance, to take a leading place in agriculture as great landowners and directors of large-scale agricultural enterprises, and similarly in the press, in politics, in art and literature, in every walk of life, so that it might have been supposed that 90 per cent of the population was Jewish, instead of a tiny minority.” Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Hungary (London: P. S. King and Son, Ltd., 1924), pp. 122-24.) Cf. also Franz Borkenau, op. cit., pp. 108-09.

12 See ČervenéNoviny, June 3, 1919.

13 Ibid., June 17, 1919.

14 Peroutka, op. cit., p. 1002.

15 ČervenéNoviny, July 3, 1919. See also Gosiorovsky, op. cit., p. 72.

16 See Dr. F. Bokeš, article in Kidtúrny život (Cultural Life), April 3, 1949; quoted in Gosiorovsky, op. cit., p. 71.

17 According to Jindřich Veselý, a contemporary Communist historian, there were “thousands of young Slovaks and Magyars from Slovakia [who] fought in the Hungarian Red Army” under the aegis of the International Red Regiment established for Communists of other than Hungarian nationality. See his O vzniku a založenl KSC (About the Origin and Foundation of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia) (Prague: Svoboda, 1953), p. 131. The Red Army was recruited first by spontaneous volunteering on the part of thousands. It was encouraged later by unemployment and by propaganda. However, the result was still unsatisfactory and, therefore, they finally resorted to conscription— not as we know it, but through the trade unions. Decrees were posted calling upon each trade union to draft a certain number of its members for the Red Army by a certain date.

18 In central and western Slovakia the advancing Hungarian Red Army units were resisted by local militia organized by patriots struggling for a Czechoslovak Republic. In towns such as Tisovec, Revaca, and Brezno, for example, the Bolsheviks were attacked while asleep and driven south defeated and disorganized. See Medvecký, op. fit., pp. 271 - 74.

19 In Bohemia the left-wing Social Democratic leaders shared a similar view. Dr. Bohumir Smeral, for instance, believed that the dictatorship would strengthen nationalism and weaken socialism in Czechoslovakia. Therefore he sent a special messenger to Bela Kun requesting him to withdraw his troops from Slovakia. Josef Stivín went even further. Writing in Právo lidu (The People's Right), he urged the Czech workers to defend their country in Slovakia. On June 15, 1919, the right-wing leaders of the Social Democratic Party issued the following proclamation: “We are invaded: Slovakia, which belongs to us on the grounds of the self-determination of nations, is supposed to be snatched away from us and subjected again to foreign rule. We appeal to you, working men and women, with the request to help defend our invaded country with all your means.” (Vesely, op. cit., p. 78.)

20 Kun's decision aroused tremendous opposition among the nationalist elements which had hitherto backed the dictatorship and supplied it with the major part of its officers. Wilhelm Boehm, the chief commander, and his chief of staff, A. Stromfeld, resigned in protest. Dr. Eugene Landler, a leader of the Railwaymen's Union, became the new commander of the army. (For further details on the Hungarian Revolution see Borkenau, op. cit., pp. 108-33; Boehm, loc. cit., and Jászi, loc. cit.)

21 See Rakosi, Mátyás, “Bericht der Kommunistischen Partei Ungarns,” Berichte zum Zpeiten Kongress der Kommunistischen Internationale (Hamburg: Carl Hoym, 1921), pp. 38-41.Google Scholar

22 Czech workers had a strong tradition of independent political activity in the form of the social democratic movement within old Austria. This experience, however, had not been a revolutionary one. As Pavel Reimann, a Communist historian, later wrote, there was a “complete lack of revolutionary tradition in Czech social democracy.” ( Reimann, Pavel, Dějiny komunistické strany československa (Prague: K. Borecký, 1931), p. 64 Google Scholar; see also Malbone W. Graham, “Parties and Politics,” in Kerner, Robert J., editor, Czechoslovakia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1945), p. 144)Google Scholar. The Slovak peasants in backward Hungary had not even had this much contact with socialist doctrine. (On the strength of the Bolsheviks in Czechoslovakia, see Gordon Skilling, H., “The Formation of a Communist Party in Czechoslovakia,” The American Slavic and East European Review, XIV, No. 3 (October, 1955), pp. 346-58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.)

23 For the Hungarian agrarian policy see Jászi, op. cit., pp. 126-27.

24 See ČervenéNoviny, June 3, 1919. The contention that the Slovak and Hungarian proletariat applied the wrong nationality policy (see Gosiorovsky, p. 95 and V. Krái, Intervenčníválka československéburžoasie proti Madarské” sovetske republice v race 1919 (Intervention War of the Czechoslovak Bourgeoisie Against the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919) (Prague: Československá akademie věd, 1954), p. 220) was refuted by Jan. Křen in “Práce o intervenční válce proti Madarské sovětské republice,” (Work on the Intervention Wat Against the Hungarian Soviet Republic)—a review article—published in NovA Mysl (New Thought), No. 8 (August 1955), pp. 845-47. His thesis is that the creation of independent Soviet republics within the framework of Soviet federated republics was in full agreement with the Lenin and Stalin policy. The fact remains, however, that in 1919 the Hungarian and Slovak revolutionaries were very much confused and disoriented.

25 See Cattell, David T., “The Hungarian Revolution of 1919 and the Reorganization of the Comintern in 1920,” Journal of Central European Affairs, XI, No. 1 (January-April, 1951), 27–38.Google Scholar

26 The more profound factors leading to the reorganization of the Comintern, at its Second Congress, were the negotiations for a Left-Wing Conference. “During the first months of 1920 a serious threat had appeared to the young Comintern. The Swiss and Austrian socialists, supported by a section of the French party, had revived the plans, which had been discussed at Zimmerwald and Kienthal and had had some sympathy from Roza Luxemburg, of reconstituting the Second International. The initiators of this plan were socialists of the left, not of the right: their aim was a truly revolutionary International, but one not excessively dependent on Moscow… . Lenin decided to meet this threat by forcing a definite split in the left socialist movement… . These conditions (Twenty-One) were intended by Lenin to split the left socialists, and they did.” See Seton-Watson, Hugh, From Lenin to Malenkov (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1953), pp. 74–75 Google Scholar; my italics. Cf. also Palme Dutt, R., The Two Internationals (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1920), pp. 380-90, 84-91Google Scholar.

27 Seton-Watson, op. cit., p. 63.

28 Ibid., p. 62.